Can Google base ads on e-mails sent to Gmail accounts?

A lawsuit up in Canada hopes to prove that question is a bit murky.

A new lawsuit targets Google for reading e-mails to target ads, according to TechCrunch. But the issue isn't that Google is reading e-mails from registered users; rather, the company is using e-mails sent from other services to Google users to target ads as well.

Google has gotten the side-eye a few times in the past for using e-mail content to serve context-based ads to its Gmail users. And for those Gmail users, Google's hide is covered: the terms of service explicitly state that users' e-mail content determines what ads they see.

Wayne Plimmer of British Columbia has filed a class-action lawsuit against Google for using his e-mails for ads. Plimmer is not a Gmail user, but his concern is that Google is reading and using his e-mails to serve ads to Gmail readers too. Being a non-Gmail user, he never agreed to the terms of service, so the legality of what Google is doing seems murky.

The lawsuit is on behalf of "all persons in the province of British Columbia who have sent e-mail to a Gmail account" and demands statutory damages for breach of copyright of $500 per e-mail that Google has used for ads. The lawsuit also seeks an injunction against Google's use of e-mails going forward. Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Interesting... I thought property rights were fairly limited when it came to email, once it leaves systems under the sender's control. All those legal disclaimer footers really seem to contort themselves around that very issue.

The legality certainly is murky, but what are the reasonable expectations here? Am I really expected to agree to the ToS of every single e-mail provider on the planet, just because my e-mail might wind up on one of their servers?

What next, should Google stop all inbound e-mail until the sender clicks "I Agree?"

I don't see this case holding water. If I contract with with a third party to read all my snail mail for me, and bring my attention to things which interest me, the sender of the mail doesn't have any standing to sue the third party for reading his letters.

I admit I'm not familiar with legal precedent on this issue, but it seems - intuitively, which is always a bad way to judge legal merits - that once an email hits my inbox, it becomes mine. Once it becomes mine, it is subject to whatever agreements I've made with third parties regarding access to it or actions taken based upon it.

I don't think this case makes any sense, considering that Google is providing the mailbox (although, with some terms and conditions) to the recipient....the recipient doesn't "own" their email inbox, it isn't something that is theirs that they have chosen to allow Google to access for the purposes of serving adverts.

There is a reasonable expectation of privacy, but Google isn't using Plimmer's emails to serve ads to random users. There's nothing wrong with serving a gmail user ads based on the emails sent to his inbox. If Pilmmer doesn't want the user to see those ads, how does he feel about them reading his email message?

Is he going to sue the manufacturer of his memory because all of his emails are read by that too? This is stupid. It's not like some Google employee is sitting there reading his email. It's just passed through some algorithm. There's no invasion of privacy unless you think the computers are sentient or you think at some point some human Google employee ends up reading emails.

I agree completely with this lawsuit, no one should be forced to have the contents of their e-mail message scanned because they are forced to interact with a gmail user. We don't agree to any sort of terms of service to connect to google MXs, why should we be subject to their ToS?

The lawyer is obviously money grubbing, as are all class action lawyers (who reap the vast majority of settlements) but the claim itself, in my opinion, is a solid one.

I agree completely with this lawsuit, no one should be forced to have the contents of their e-mail message scanned because they are forced to interact with a gmail user. We don't agree to any sort of terms of service to connect to google MXs, why should we be subject to their ToS?

The lawyer is obviously money grubbing, as are all class action lawyers (who reap the vast majority of settlements) but the claim itself, in my opinion, is a solid one.

The case is not that simple because the sender has copyright over the content but does not own the recipient's copy of the email. The recipient can do anything he wants with the copy that falls under fair use... scan it for viruses, print it out, read it aloud to friends, or run it through a filter to serve (allegedly) relevant ads. Google is not using the text of the email in its ads, just scanning it for keywords to pick which ads to serve.

If you want the Google postal service to transport and hold the email for your reciepent and not scan anything than why don't you just go ahead and pay for googles services on behalf of your reciepent.

By sending an email to Google you are asking them to conduct buisness for you. They should not have to pass your data around for you for free. Email is not a "secure" communication method.

I don't see how my giving Google the right to read my incoming email is any different than my ability to forward all my incoming email to Google (or anyone else). Am I liable for $500 per email I forward?

If you want the Google postal service to transport and hold the email for your reciepent and not scan anything than why don't you just go ahead and pay for googles services on behalf of your reciepent.

By sending an email to Google you are asking them to conduct buisness for you. They should not have to pass your data around for you for free. Email is not a "secure" communication method.

You can also ask the post office to hold and transport mail for you (and in some cases you don't need to pay for that). Would you think that it is OK for someone at the post office to start opening up and reading your mail?

If you read in between the lines, it seems likely, or at least possible, that Wayne Plimmer is a spammer who objects to others getting the opportunity to advertise to users based on his own advertisements. Worse, Google may display his competitor's advertisements on mails OTHER than his spam, which may never get seen at all.

You can also ask the post office to hold and transport mail for you (and in some cases you don't need to pay for that). Would you think that it is OK for someone at the post office to start opening up and reading your mail?

If I had a contract with the post office telling them it was ok for them to do that, then, yes, I would think it was ok...

If you want the Google postal service to transport and hold the email for your reciepent and not scan anything than why don't you just go ahead and pay for googles services on behalf of your reciepent.

By sending an email to Google you are asking them to conduct buisness for you. They should not have to pass your data around for you for free. Email is not a "secure" communication method.

Even when you pay for Google services, through Google Apps, they still scan all of your stuff.Paying for it doesn't change what Google does with all of your data, and the data that's getting sent from others to Google accounts.

At first I thought maybe Google was sending target ads to the sender based on the recipients e-mail contents from him. That may be taking it over the line, but that's not the case after reading the tech crunch article. Interesting enough that article shows that this guy does not understand the privacy of email as he thinks it is secure for solicitor-client privileges....

"In addition, the lawsuit also argues that Google infringes on the email senders’ copyright, as well as solicitor-client, physician-patient, priest-penitent and journalist-source privileges."

You can also ask the post office to hold and transport mail for you (and in some cases you don't need to pay for that). Would you think that it is OK for someone at the post office to start opening up and reading your mail?

If I had a contract with the post office telling them it was ok for them to do that, then, yes, I would think it was ok...

It seems to me that's the issue w/ the lawsuit. The plaintiff wants to make sure that Google only scans emails from the people it has a contract with. Just because A and B have a contract, it doesn't imply that C is bound by the terms of the contract.

Heh. At my previous job I got a whipping for sending corporate info to someone's gmail address exactly for these sorts of reasons. But... we just had a policy. We didn't do business with anyone through GMail. If we found out they were forwarding our emails to a gmail account, we asked them to stop or found someone else to work with.

TBH, I'm always amazed to hear any businesses decide to use any of Google's services for exactly this reason.

I do not wish to have to read, understand, and agree to the TOS of each and every email agent for each and every "person" to whom I send an email (as regards the resulting rights of that email handler to track me by virtue of my having sent an email to that "person" via their server). Thus, I can understand the lawsuit. Were I a gmail user, of course, I would fully expect and accept G's right and ability to track *me* and target advertising to *me* based upon the contents of my incoming mail. But leave my senders alone. (This habit of G's is part of why I quit using gmail.)

If you read in between the lines, it seems likely, or at least possible, that Wayne Plimmer is a spammer who objects to others getting the opportunity to advertise to users based on his own advertisements. Worse, Google may display his competitor's advertisements on mails OTHER than his spam, which may never get seen at all.

Yeah well what if he was selling services for something like writing a will, and it popped up an ad for legal zoom showing they can do the will for 1/5th the price? The sender may have lost the business and be upset... But what about the user? He may be saying awesome... What about Google and the Advertiser? Cha-ching...

I can see the guy's point. From a techie perspective, I think it's kinda dumb, but I also recognize that we have a different view from a normal person. Most of us understand that an email is basically just a .txt file; to an average person it's magically turned into binary until it appears on the other end.

What to do about it? I dunno; GMail is free for a reason, and securing email against it would tend to reduce the advantage to keeping it so for Google. Saying "well, encrypt it yourself" would be a simple solution...for Arsians. I shudder to imagine explaining the concept to my mom.

I hate this about Google. If any Google user have my address in their Google account: Google indexes it.

I havent agreed to Googles terms. If I send an email to a Google user, Google have no right to read/index the email. This is a case that would be won in my country.

And the big question is this: What is Google hiding?In my country we have right by law to have all information that a company have about a user, shared with the user. I sent a legal note to Google Sweden requesting all information that Google have about me according to Swedish law. The first answer: Really lame, stupid, standard A4 response "how to remove copyright content". I had to send a new legal letter to Google. This time they escalated it to USA and they sent a lame: you can check your privacy statement online.

Just SHOW ME what you have datamined about me. That is not to much to ask.

Its scary how people accept this. I guess they are uneducated or naive.

The lawyer is obviously money grubbing, as are all class action lawyers (who reap the vast majority of settlements) but the claim itself, in my opinion, is a solid one.

Would you argue I can't hire a secretary to read my (e)mails? That I can't scan/copy all the (e)mail I receive and store it on Amazon Glacier for safekeeping?

He sent his (e)mail to me. He doesn't own my copy. And barring any confidentiality agreements, I can do whatever the hell I want with my copy, including using Gmail and having Google parse it for ads. It's my choice, not his.

Should we also prevent Google Voice from automatically transcribing voice mail because of privacy issues, or is that a legal secretary replacement?

It seems to me that's the issue w/ the lawsuit. The plaintiff wants to make sure that Google only scans emails from the people it has a contract with. Just because A and B have a contract, it doesn't imply that C is bound by the terms of the contract.

Indeed, contracts don't bind third parties. But if we think of this as a physical letter, as you suggested, once I receive a physical letter, I can give it to whoever I feel like. As other people on this thread have said, there is clearly nothing wrong with hiring someone to sift through mail that I have received.

I don't see this case holding water. If I contract with with a third party to read all my snail mail for me, and bring my attention to things which interest me, the sender of the mail doesn't have any standing to sue the third party for reading his letters.

I admit I'm not familiar with legal precedent on this issue, but it seems - intuitively, which is always a bad way to judge legal merits - that once an email hits my inbox, it becomes mine. Once it becomes mine, it is subject to whatever agreements I've made with third parties regarding access to it or actions taken based upon it.

This seems like decent logic, but let me throw in a thing or two.

The sender's reasonable expectation is that his email is private correspondence, not for any intermediary to use as it sees fit. If, say, a backbone provider were to use contents of traffic on its net for any other purpose than managing its workload — and in a fairly non-intrusive way, at that— they could realistically expect to be sued for violation of privacy.

Similarly, if I tell you that info you send me will be treated in confidence, I have the right to expect as much, and not have some third party abrogate that commitment. And if Google's TOS were to read, “we retain all rights to any email SENT TO YOU at your account,” why, the world would quickly find an alternative to GMail.

Finally, I note Google is reserving ITS right to decide where the line is crossed. If my email to you includes a business proposal, what is to stop Google, under that policy, from hijacking my business idea? Or if I call you on a Google Voice or Android account, what is to stop Google from taking my information using their savvy voice-to-text algorithms?

I expect that Google will not be able to hold to the line of reason that justifies their doing anything they choose with any email that they handle. If the logic were to hold, it would cause the instant collapse of any notion of privacy, which our society is not ready for, no matter how the agreements may be worded.

People only seem to be upset because of the advertising. Almost every mail provider out there, regardless of first party (Your ISP usually) or third party (Google, Postini, AppRiver, Etc) is going to scan the content of your mail for a spam score and/or viruses. Most services do it for both outbound and inbound mail, so it's likely your content is getting searched twice. If you don't want the content of your mail read you need to encrypt it yourself. Don't get all up in arms over a few text ad's based on the content of one of the most insecure digital communication methods that exists today.

It seems to me that's the issue w/ the lawsuit. The plaintiff wants to make sure that Google only scans emails from the people it has a contract with. Just because A and B have a contract, it doesn't imply that C is bound by the terms of the contract.

Indeed, contracts don't bind third parties. But if we think of this as a physical letter, as you suggested, once I receive a physical letter, I can give it to whoever I feel like. As other people on this thread have said, there is clearly nothing wrong with hiring someone to sift through mail that I have received.

If I parade around my house in the nude with the blinds not drawn, I have to expect that people may see me, even take a photo of me.

That does NOT grant anybody the right to publish that photo. Laws about privacy are clear on such points, if not on what Google can do with email. (Betcha they turn out to be pretty clear on the latter point, too, though.)

Considering the volume of email that gmail sees every day, there is a good chance $500 per email that is affected could put google out of business. I am sure that won't actually happen, but the volume must be huge.

As many others have pointed out, there is absolutely zero merit to this case. Once you send it to me it's mine to do whatever I like with it. I agreed to the Google TOS, ergo, after you send it to me, I've pre-authorized Google to scan it and serve up ads based on the contents once it's in my posession (or in this case google's since i've authorized them to receive mail addressed to me by simply having them be my provider.)

As to murst's "how would they know" question, it's my understanding that the apps services (which are paid services, generally) are not subject to the same data mining, but he's welcome to search the TOS and link with section number to prove me wrong.

At the end of the day, even snailmail has no guarantees with regard to the sender other than it won't be opened by someone other than the recipient or a party the intended recipient authorizes (some exceptions with court order, customs checks, etc.). Point is, there's no case, and murst's arguments are weak at best, and strongly imply personal bias (claiming to use google apps services for all his domains and then going on with the statements he has in this thread seems a bit contradictory, to put it politely.)

Yeah, I know this is a completely different technology, but would we be okay with the U.S. postal service reading our mail? I sure as heck wouldn't. Doctors offices are now sending medical records to patients via email. Should Google have access to our medical history for marketing purposes, and then sell that information to the highest bidder?

Yeah, I know this is a completely different technology, but would we be okay with the U.S. postal service reading our mail? I sure as heck wouldn't. Doctors offices are now sending medical records to patients via email. Should Google have access to our medical history for marketing purposes, and then sell that information to the highest bidder?

Google is not acting as the postal service. AT&T, Level3, etc. are the postal service shuffling bits from the sender to the recipient. Google is analogous to one of those Mail Etc retailers that set up a PO Box for you. Some off-premise mail processing facilities will, with the recipient's express permission, open the mail for sorting or other handling. Do you really think celebrities actually read all of their own fan mail? Do you really think that packages addressed to "Scum-Sucking CEO of MegaCorp!!!!!!!!" get opened by the CEO? In the latter case, they might be opened by a bomb-disposal robot...